Rice Lake Man Cannot Sleep

Troubled With Strange Ailment For the Past Two Months - Consults Eau Claire Doctors

– Eau Claire Leader, February 21, 1905

The case of Ed Johnson of Rice Lake, is puzzling the physicians of the city and a few of the Eau Claire physicians, who have been consulted in the case. The fellow with the strange ailment is a brother-in-law of J.S. Crisler, a well known citizen of Rice Lake. Mr. Johnson has not slept with the exception of a few hours, during the past two months. He is apparently in good health and has a good appetite but at night time he does not feel sleepy, in fact cannot sleep, and usually sits by the fire until a few days ago when he began to feel quite nervous and decided to consult a physician. The doctors at Rice Lake do not seem to find anything the matter with him and he came to Eau Claire recently to consult the physicians of this city. One of the citizens of Rice Lake suggests as a remedy that Johnson be placed on the police force. 

 

Chad's Take:

I found this odd article several years ago when I was doing research for the Hidden Headlines book. I really enjoyed the medical mystery it contained, and I started to wonder what could have possibly happened to this man that would prevent him from ever sleeping. Much like today, when doctors from smaller communities are baffled by a certain case, they consult doctors from a bigger city. In this case the bigger city happened to be Eau Claire.   It seems that this man’s bizarre ailment baffled the EC physicians as well. Unfortunately I was never able to discover what the outcome for this man was, but I hope he eventually got a good night’s rest.  

What I really love about this article is the last sentence, and I will tell you why.   I think the sentence is brilliantly set up so that the reader can interpret it in one of two ways. First, if you are a straight-edged, by the book type of person you would assume that the helpful citizen was simply suggesting a productive way for the man to make the best of his situation, and that the police force could always use another night time officer. However, if you are the more cynical off-beat person you would immediately take this sentence to mean that since the police do nothing but sleep on the job, so this man would fit right in.  So was the newspaper taking a jab at the police force?  I really believe that……. Well I’ll let you make up your own mind.

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